


by action rather than words

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurens shouldn’t have stolen into Hamilton’s affections without his consent, but as he has done it, and as Alexander is generally indulgent to those he loves, the least John could do is deserve it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	by action rather than words

**Author's Note:**

> to my knowledge this is not historically inaccurate (though it’s obviously not historically _accurate_ ), except in my mind it’s these men as portrayed by the broadway cast

##  **(August, 1777)**

Stripped down to his waistcoat and looking as though he intended to mortally offend the sensibilities of any passing Lady who might spot them, Laurens wipes his sleeve across his forehead and balefully regards his opponent. Hamilton’s already shed all but his britches, shoes, and socks, and he’s checking the edge of his sabre while he waits.

“You may as well,” says Alexander, laughter in his eyes when he looks up, brandishing his blade, slim, tanned shoulders a testament to how little mind he pays to modesty when away from civilization. “Or we could rest until the day cools.”

John considers that he may just regret asking Alexander to fence with him; the other man is frantic, unrelenting, his stamina seemingly without limit even in the sweltering summer heat. “We have a meeting with the General,” he reminds him, “and we can hardly do this safely after dark.”

Hamilton silently concedes that sabres are not actually conducive to nonlethal combat while John gives in, unbuttoning his waistcoat and folding it neatly across his jacket over a nearby shrub.

“I’ve shown you the techniques of my beloved South Carolina,” Laurens comments as he widens his stance and raises his cutlass, “where did you learn to fence like that, Hamilton?”

Maybe it’s his comfort with the other man, or the memories of laying barechested on sand watching the undesirables of St. Croix hack at each other with sabres over the crests of pale dunes that brings on a show of bravado. “I would be happy, Lt. Col. Laurens,” Alexander says with a bow and a flourish, “to show you how we did it in the West Indies.”

A flash of interest flickers across Laurens’s expression, but he only cants his head and lunges forward. “You were born in the Caribbean,” he probes later as they stroll across the camp toward Washington’s tent, both of them now fully dressed as he privately marvels at the speed of Hamilton’s comparatively short legs, “I don’t believe you’ve ever mentioned that before.”

“Haven’t I?” says Hamilton, “Perhaps I thought it not worth mentioning.”

“Would you mind much if I asked which island?”

“Nevis.” Alexander notes that he and Laurens have stopped, pausing in the stretch of emptiness between Washington’s tent and the remaining soldiers’. “You’ve never heard of it.” 

“Charlestown? I’ve seen logs of trade ships passing through its port.”

Hamilton stiffens, the name of his old hometown gripping the back of his neck like an icy claw. John only looks at him, eyes clear and steady. 

“Yes,” he answers at last.

“Alexander, I’ve been meaning to ask.” John inhales deeply, and it occurs to Alexander that the other man is as nervous as he is wary; as if Laurens had been working up to this topic for a while now. “It may be a difficult subject.”

“Difficult for me, or difficult for the son of the largest planter in South Carolina?”

“So you know I intend to inquire after your opinion, which you know I hold in the highest regard–”

Bluntly, “Slavery.”

John musters his courage and presses on. “I find it abhorrent.”

“You may also find,” says Alexander, “that it makes little difference to the slaves you own whether or not you approve of their circumstances.”

“My father owns them. I would free them, were it in my power.”

“Where would they go after manumission?” Hamilton counters before he can stop himself, brows furrowing. The logistics of abolition have always interested him, just as much as they’ve confounded him. “Could your family afford to keep the estate if they were to stay on as servants compensated for their labor? If not, who would work your fields? Would planting rice still be such a profitable industry? _Would_ you free them, John?”

John’s answer draws as much shame for doubting him out of Alexander as it does a surge of respect for the other man.

“Are money and property worth more than the liberty to which all men are entitled?”

“That depends on whom you ask,” Alexander replies, voice bitter, “and how much of it they stand to lose.”

Gripping his shoulders, Laurens moves in and leans down to bring his face close. “I ask you, Alexander.”

“You know my heart, John.” Alexander grasps his forearms, looks plainly up at him. He, more than any of his compatriots, has seen the brutality of the trade, life in the West Indies even harsher than the mainland. In St. Croix, Hamilton himself had inspected ships packed with human cargo, gone aboard vessels so crowded and rank that he couldn’t imagine staying for an hour much less months. More than the smell, it was the people; men, women, children, their features recalling the faces of caretakers, teachers, friends.

“It echoes the sentiments of yours,” he insists, “though my mind says freedom for every slave in these colonies is not as simple as we would like it to be.”

A grin lights up John’s face, relief and excitement in his voice as he releases Hamilton and steps away. “I was thinking, Alexander, that you could draft a plan with me. I would take it to Congress.” 

“A plan,” Alexander repeats, his mind already buzzing, “that could be effective, and amenable to Congress. A battalion?”

“For a battal–” John blinks, shocked that Alexander had ferreted out his plan so quickly but pleased all the same. “Yes.”

Hamilton turns on his heel, glancing eagerly over his shoulder to prompt Laurens to follow. “We’ll start tonight, John. After this meeting with his Excellency.”

“So soon?”

“When else?”

##  **(September, 1777)**

Hamilton doesn’t notice anyone in Washington’s tent with him until a warm hand intercepts his cold one on its path between inkwell and blotter. He looks up, expression breaking into a grin when Laurens smiles genially back. “Still at work,” John murmurs, glancing over the reports on General Howe’s movements they’ve been tasked to write, “the General doesn’t need these for another day.”

“If I do them now,” retorts Alexander, pointedly turning up the lamp on the small, makeshift desk, “I will not have to do them in another day.”

“Washington will be turning in soon.”

“Then I’ll move to our tent,” he mutters under his breath, shaking Laurens’s hand off so he can finish blotting his pen. Looking up, “Did you have an appointment with his Excellency?”

“I came looking for you, Alexander.” Laurens pulls a tin plate from behind his back and sets it on the table, huffing a small chuckle at Hamilton’s disinterested grimace. “The marquis cooked,” he says to appease his fellow aide, “so consider it _haute cuisine à la française._ ” 

“I already ate today.”

“I recall that I nearly had to force a corner of bread down your gullet this morning,” chides Laurens, “and that hardly qualifies as eating.”

Hamilton reluctantly sets down his pen and grabs a lump of bread, dipping it into the steaming bean-and-salt-pork stew in a dented tin bowl. The first bite nearly scalds his tongue, but the smell wakes his appetite. By the time he’s finished the soup, the bread and half a canteen of cider Laurens had passed along, he’s warmed from the core– and acutely aware of the chill in his extremities.

“Your hands are cold as ice,” Laurens comments as if reading his mind, his palm suddenly warm on Alexander’s knuckles. John pulls away with a gentle squeeze. “You must take better care of yourself,” he continues, picking a thin blanket off Washington’s bedroll and draping it over the other man’s shoulders, “now that you’re part of the family.”

“What shall I do without you?” Hamilton retorts, tapping the hollow end of his pen against his chin, shifting the blanket out of the way of his writing hand. “Yes, I’ll try not to freeze to death… in September.”

John’s voice drops an octave, his tone taking on the airs of his upbringing even as a mischievous smile quirks his lips. “Good. The General has great need of you and holds you in the highest esteem. As do I and the rest of the lads.”

“You’re not even half a year my senior,” Alexander protests, halfway to his feet, but Laurens is already on his way out, shoulders swaying with each languid step.

Just before the tent’s flap falls shut, John laughingly calls through the gap. “ _Fais de beaux rêves_ , Hamilton.”

Staring after him for a few long seconds, Alexander sits, pulls the blanket closer around his shoulders, folds his arms across the desk and lets his forehead slam down onto them. “God,” he sighs, “damnit.”

##  **(January, 1778)**

“I’ll have this fire roaring soon,” John says, his back to the door when Alexander strides into their cabin. “Have you eaten?”

Even Hamilton, who rarely pays any mind to how much and how often he eats, sounds mildly despondent when he answers, “I have.“ 

"His Excellency has dismissed us for the day,” continues John, trying to redirect before they can think much longer on how their supplies have dwindled, the only food available some days a flavorless lump of firecake. 

“Yes.”

“Try to rest, Ham.”

“John,” Alexander murmurs, hands folded in front of his nose and mouth as steam escapes from between his fingers, “could I be hallucinating these four walls around us?” 

Laurens is, as ever, tolerant of his melodrama. He looks up from the makeshift hearth of their hastily-assembled log cabin, halfway through coaxing a flame to life. They have a luxurious dwelling relative to the other soldiers’ tents, spacious and furnished with a single table in addition to a moderately large wooden cot. “I believe the next cabin over has a fire already,” John answers, voice muffled and wry behind his wool collar, “and twelve men gathered around it.”

Alexander sniffs, seeming to consider the prospect. He’s never underestimated the warmth emitted from a human body. On particularly humid days in St. Croix, even breathing in close proximity to another person made the heat nearly unbearable; surely, another body would contribute to moderating the temperature of a cabin in the dead of winter. “Twelve men, you said?” 

John winks at him. “You should smell it.”

“Never mind,” huffs Alexander, but he shuffles to Laurens’s side and drops into a crouch next to him. The next moment, he’s on his feet and dashing back out, returning with an armful of wood to pile by the fireplace. Hamilton makes several more trips before the flame is steady enough to feed a log, and when the cabin has warmed enough to go without their jackets, Laurens retires to bed.

John doesn’t sleep yet, watching Alexander pace in front of the fire for a good half hour yawning and muttering to himself. When he finally sits up, Hamilton pauses on his rounds. “John?”

“Get some sleep, Alexander. We are assigned to reconnaisance tomorrow.”

After a long moment, he climbs into bed reluctantly, either not noticing or choosing out of courtesy not to point out that John had moved and left him the spot that’d already been warmed. Laurens drops off first. 

He doesn’t remember when he falls asleep, but Alexander wakes with a pair of arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders, their owner stirring when he squirms to get free. 

“John,” says Alexander as he slides out of bed. He immediately regrets it, their fire having died to embers sometime in the night, cabin now nearly cooled to the same temperature as the air outside. He quickly tumbles back in when Laurens lifts the corner of their blanket. “John,” he repeats, startling the other man fully awake.

“Mh?”

Hamilton buries his nose into the warmth of John’s shoulder and petulantly snaps, “We really must stop meeting like this.”

“You were shivering, Alexander.”

“Well, it’s cold.”

“So delicate,” John mumbles sleepily, “our little lion.”

“I don’t need to hear that from you as well, Laurens.” Alexander pokes him lightly in the ribs, to no response. “John? John, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell me you’ve fallen asleep again–” 

##  **(June, 1778)**

“I hear reports that you’d taken a tumble,” Alexander says as he limps into John’s room. “Are you still alive, my dear Laurens?”

“My pride may have fallen in battle with my poor horse,” Laurens murmurs, hair in disarray as he presses one palm to dirty cloth bandages layered across his chest, the only thing their surgeon could find to wrap his bruised and likely fractured ribs, “but I deeply regret to inform you that your competition for sole translator remains very much alive.”

The warm relief in Alexander’s bright eyes betrays every perfect inflection of mock-disappointment in his voice. “Foiled again.”

“You should be resting,” John tells him, even as he extends his hands for Alexander to grasp. “You didn’t escape Monmouth in much better shape than I.”

“I couldn’t bear to be away from your side.”

A grin splits Laurens’s face, indulgent and bashful. “Dear boy.”

“First Germantown,” says Hamilton as he settles on the edge of the cot, “now Monmouth.”

John doesn’t miss the way Alexander’s grip tightens around his hand, the same one that had been rendered useless the first time he’d been wounded in battle. “Germantown was but a scratch.”

“I feel every one of your injuries as if they were my own,” the smaller man says, ready as ever to descend into theatrics, “so you must learn to take better care of yourself. I am, as you love to remind me, of a more delicate constitution, and if you care for me as you say, you’ll stop this recklessness.” Before John can interrupt, Hamilton takes another deep breath and plows on. “You have no status or estate to gain, only to lose if you were to be killed, and then whom may I refer to when asked for wealthy references?”

“I’ll write to my father,” John answers, “and tell him that a small, disheveled tomcat may one day show at his door for assistance, and that for my sake he will be obliged to help. If he were to dismiss you, it would be as if he were dismissing his own departed son.”

Hamilton fights back a laugh as he says, “Does his son also feel the grievous wound to my honor he has just inflicted?”

“We are a sorry sight,” John snorts. He lets his head fall back. “Every one of our hurts counts for two. Where is the noble marquis?”

“Rallying the troops.”

Staring up at their tarp ceiling, Laurens sighs. “This tent feels rather empty without him.”

“It is a bit quiet.”

“Now,” says John, thumb brushing across the callus on Alexander’s trigger finger, “I never said quiet.”

Alexander jerks his hands away. “Sir!”


End file.
